What is an NFT?

Posted on March 9, 2022January 16, 2025 by Jonathan Horwich

Will they stand the test of time? Non-fungible tokens explained.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) seem to have come out of nowhere, however the technology has been around since at least 2014 if not before. The catalyst seems to have been Lockdown, if you can’t go to the saleroom then let the saleroom come to you, albeit virtually. Auctioneers, Galleries and Artists transformed their web presence almost overnight in order to offer NFTs that take the form of art and music and everything in between and are selling like hotcakes, some for a few £ and others for millions and millions of £, sometimes it feels like ‘Tulip Fever’ has re-visited us from the 17th-century…

What is an NFT?
An NFT is a digital asset recorded on the ‘Blockchain’ that represents actual objects such as art, music, in-game items and videos. An NFT is created, or “minted” from digital objects that represent both tangible and intangible items. They are bought and sold online, mainly using cryptocurrencies and are generally encoded with the same or similar software to that used by many crypto currencies. I think it’s best to assume that to be involved with buying NFTs you will have to embrace crypto currencies, the most common one used in NFTs is Ethereum. The value of Crypto currencies changes minute to minute day to day, before Christmas one Etheruem was worth around £3,000 to 1 Ethereum today its down to nearer to £2,200 to E1. Ethereum’s value is not only affected by the usual world events and demand but also by the sale of significant numbers of NFTs. Just like the Stock market, a collector offloading significant numbers of NFT’s creates downward price pressure on both crypto currency and the value of NFTs.

New NFTs are announced as ‘Drops’ and are either unique one off pieces or part of a limited edition exactly like limited edition prints, which interestingly were all the rage exactly 100 years ago back in 1922!
NFT ‘editions’ can be one off unique works or one from of a very limited run, large or small and each will have a unique identifying codes or features. Similar to Banksy print editions that are produced in total numbers of either 150 or 500, each print is individually numbered and carries formal certification and the ownerships changes are recorded, the smaller edition of 150 is also signed, typically numbered by hand in pencil, 7/150 the larger 150/500 etc.

What does fungible mean?
Physical money and cryptocurrencies are “fungible,” meaning they can be traded or exchanged for one another. For example I give you a fiver you give me one back and we are quits, i.e. they are fungible and equal in value – one dollar is always worth another dollar; one Bitcoin is always equal to another Bitcoin. Crypto’s fungibility makes it a trusted means of conducting transactions on the Blockchain.

What is Blockchain?
NFTs exist on a blockchain, which is a public ledger that records transactions and ownership. If you are already familiar with Crypto currency then blockchain is the same underlying process that makes cryptocurrencies possible.

Specifically, NFTs are typically held on the Ethereum blockchain, although there are other blockchains that support them as well.

Each individual unique NFT is different. Each one has a digital signature that makes it impossible for NFTs to be exchanged for or equal to one another (hence, non-fungible).
NFTs can have only ever have one owner at a time their unique data verifies their ownership and transfers ownership to new owners and artists can sign their artwork by including their signature in an NFT’s metadata.

Are NFTs here to stay?
I think yes, and they offer new opportunities and life enhancements. For example artists can now cut out the gallery and sell direct to the public and also engage with them face to face and online. Owners form communities who join together to discuss the artists they collect and follow. The discussions are not just about money, the NFT is very inclusive and no longer the exclusive domain of the mega wealthy collector and in buying NFT’s you support artists and get the inside track on the latest news and drops.
Also its all virtual you don’t have to worry about where to hang your piece, it lives in the secure ‘wallet’ on your phone and you can look at it anytime you like.

Who are the big names in NFT’s and why do collectors spend such huge sums of money on them?
The most famous and valuable digital artist is Mike Winklemann, better known as “Beeple” he made a composite of 5,000 daily drawings he made over five years to create perhaps the most famous NFT of the moment, “EVERYDAYS: The First 5000 Days,” which sold at Christies New York in March 2021 for £69 million. However you don’t have to own the Beeple NFT to see it, anyone can view the individual images—or even the entire collage of images online for free. So why are people willing to spend millions on something they could easily screenshot or download?
Owning the NFT allows the buyer to own the original item. Blockchain offers authentication and provenance which offers proof of ownership.
Artists can also program in future royalties so they can receive a percentage of sales whenever their art is sold to a new owner. This is an attractive feature for artists as generally they don’t always receive future proceeds after their art is first sold.

How do I Buy NFTs
First, you’ll need to get a digital wallet that allows you to store your new NFTs and cryptocurrencies. You’ll need to purchase some cryptocurrency like Ethereum, which you can buy using a credit card on platforms such as Coinbase, Kraken, eToro and PayPal. There will be fees so watch out for these, most exchanges charge a percentage of your transaction when you buy crypto.
Once you’ve got your wallet set up and funded, you are good to go. Currently, the largest NFT marketplaces are:

OpenSea.io
Rarible
Foundation

These platforms are host to thousands of NFT creators and collectors, equally you can also go to auction as all the main International auction houses now have fully staffed departments dealing only with NFT’s with private and regular auctions and ‘Drops’. Also the bigger galleries such as Pace now have a separate NFT department.

Should I buy NFTs?
NFTs are risky because there is no discernible secondary market as yet and so there are no comparable secondary sale prices that you might be looking at if collecting mainstream art. It’s all just so new, so maybe it’s worth just dipping your toe in the water and go for individual artists selling direct like ‘Waxbones’ via the site knownorigin.io. I was very impressed when I heard him on Radio 4 recently, as he says himself ‘I design information and wayfinding for cities by day and expel my creative juices under the alias ‘Waxbones’. by night.. his prices start at around £300 for his limited editions.

Buying NFTs must be a personal decision and only if you have money to spare and remember that the value is based entirely on what someone else is willing to pay for it. An NFT when it comes to resale may go for less than you paid for it, or you might not be able to sell it at all if nobody wants it.

I heard a collector speaking on the radio recently, he owns 15 NFT’s which he has bought as part of his broader investment portfolio, he has valued them all at £O! This way as he says ‘the only way is up’!

There lots to study and see out there on NFTs so take a good look around and enjoy!

Love is in the

Posted on February 14, 2022January 16, 2025 by Ben Hanly

Nothing says I Love You more on Valentine’s Day than a big red heart – so if you’re the romantic type with deep pockets and a love of Urban art, why don’t you pop down to Sotheby’s on 2nd March and buy a belated Valentine’s gift for your better half?

Robbie Williams, the former Take That singer and one of the UK’s most successful pop star of the past 30 years, has decided to sell three major works by Banksy from his personal collection at Sotheby’s London contemporary sale. No doubt hoping to capitalise on the strong prices original works by Banksy have achieved in the last couple of years, Williams is offering a strong selection of iconic works for sale.

‘These works unite the cultural legacies of two of Britain’s biggest stars: Robbie Williams and Banksy,’ said Hugo Cobb of Sotheby’s. ‘Like their creator and like their owner, they are acerbic, iconic, irreverent and unique.’

The earliest work of the group is a 2002 unique version of Banksy’s famous Girl with Balloon, painted on a metal sheeting. This work is earlier than the infamous 2006 version which was shredded live during a Sotheby’s auction in 2018, and which subsequently sold again last year at Sotheby’s under the new titled of Love is in the Bin, making £18,500,000 – a world record for the artist. The Williams version might not have the notoriety of the shredded work, but its strong rock ‘n roll provenance, and the fact that it is the only version painted on metal to come to auction, will no doubt ensure a strong result. The work is estimated at £2m-3m.

Also up for sale is a 2005 version of Kissing Coppers, which depicts two male British police officers in a passionate embrace.

This image first appeared on the outside wall of the Prince Albert pub in Brighton in 2004 and was a very public demonstration for Banksy’s support for acceptance of homosexuality. The original mural was removed in 2014 after being repeatedly vandalised, but you can buy the Williams version at Sotheby’s, which is estimated at £2.5m-3.5m.

The third and final work being offered is a strong example of Banksy’s Vandalised Oil series, in which Banksy has superimposed a stencil of two military helicopters flying over and disrupting a serene pastoral landscape. It is part of a series of works the artist made in which he superimposes graffiti and stencilled images on top of traditional paintings. Flying Chopper, carries a pre-sale estimate of £2.5m-3.5m, but it will no doubt attract strong interest from buyers.

The three works were available for viewing at Sotheby’s New York between January 22nd-27th, Hong Kong between February 8th-9th, and are now heading back to London for the final public viewing from February 22nd before being sold on 2nd March.

Of course, if your Valentine’s Day budget is a little too modest to allow you to buy the famous big red heart for your loved one, I’m sure a box of chocolates will do just fine!

Sir John Lavery and the image of tennis

Posted on January 25, 2022January 16, 2025 by Ben Hanly

2022 is not a year that anyone except the most reclusive could possibly claim not to have heard of the Australian Tennis Open – the high profile legal wranglings between the Australian Government and Novak Djokovic over his entry visa, covid vaccinations and his deportation, have made the already famous sports tournament front page news worldwide. Founded in 1905, the Australian Open, or the ‘happy slam’ as it is affectionately known, is the first of the 4 grand slam tournaments worldwide, which takes place in Melbourne every year. Although it is not the highest paid tournament (the prize money is only A$75m!), the Australian Open is by far the most popular in terms of attendance numbers, with 812,000 spectators attending the 2020 tournament.

Notwithstanding our current fascination with the dramas playing out in Oz, we, the public, have always had a fondness and affection for the game of tennis, one which is totally different to that of other sports, and one which goes back centuries to its origins. The racket sport we now call tennis, is the direct descendant of ‘real’ tennis or ‘royal‘ tennis, which continues to be played today as a separate sport with more complex rules. Most historians believe that tennis originated in the monastic cloisters in northern France in the 12th century, but the ball was then struck with the palm of the hand; hence, the name jeu de paume (game of the palm). It was not until the 16th century when rackets came into use, and the game as we know it emerged. The roots of the game are firmly linked to the royal courts of France and England, with Henry VIII of England being one of the most avid players of his day – his luxurious tennis courts still remain to this day at Hampton Court Palace. In France the sport was so firmly associated with the Court and Nobility that during the Revolution many of the tennis courts we deliberately destroyed as a sign of a new era emerging.

Subliminally these Aristocratic links and associations have remained with us into modern times. Tennis still has the perception of being a genteel sport, one which is played out on immaculate lawns on sunny summer afternoons, with players dressed in immaculate tennis whites. One only has to look at Wimbledon to confirm this – the tournament is so much more than simply a sporting occasion, it has become a firm part of London’s social season, with its Royal Box, champagne, strawberries and cream! Without doubt this image belies the seriousness of the sport, and the huge financials at stake in modern tennis, however, it is also this je ne sais quoi that also adds to its modern success.

Depictions of tennis in western art very much follow the image of tennis as a jolly, social pastime played by the leisured classes and gilded youth. The summer is always eternal, and the player are carefree without a worry in the world! One of the most brilliant and prolific painters of this subject is the Victorian artist Sir John Lavery, who is more usually associated with the glamorous and elegant society portraits he produced throughout his life. Tennis, however, fascinated him and he returned to paint the theme on a number of occasions, producing both informal studies and highly complicated compositions.

One of the earliest depictions is Lavery’s 1885 painting, Played!! which captures the movement and drama of an exciting new sport, as a young woman lunges to return serve. In the early 1880s, Lavery had returned from Paris, where he was studying at the prestigious Academie Julian, and was quickly taken by the game. In the summer of 1885, he visited the home of a friend in the suburbs of Glasgow, where a tennis court had been set up. The painting was inspired by this visit, and marked a new direction for the artist, away from his more usual society portraits towards depictions of ‘modern’ life – no doubt influenced by the Impressionist works he would have seen during his stay in Paris. His choice of the subject and naturalistic portrayal was considered extremely avant-garde at the time. Lawn tennis was then at an interesting stage in its development as a modern sport. It had emerged in the 1870s and had been inaugurated at Wimbledon as recently as 1877, when the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club introduced men’s singles championships. Ladies’ singles and men’s doubles had not been incorporated until 1884. The process by which women arrived on court was a gradual one, then, and mixed doubles matches were yet to come.

Played!! turned out to be a mere prelude to Lavery’s undoubted masterpiece on the subject which painted the same year. The Tennis Party, which is in the collection of the Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, is an absolute tour de force of a painting, showing huge sophistication of composition, movement and bravura brushwork. In spite of its apparent spontaneity the picture is not merely an arbitrary slice of life, rather it is highly constructed work aimed at giving the illusion of spontaneity. The depiction of both male and female players in the same game, which seems uneventful to a modern viewer, would have been the height of modernism at the time, where casual, real-time depictions of the opposite sexes cavorting together was very rare at the time.

Throughout his career Lavery, returned often to the subject of tennis, which more than any other sport held his fascination. Although Lavery’s first depictions of tennis might have been painted in Scotland, his later works were increasingly international showing the growing popularity of the sport. The paintings Lavery produced in the first quarter of the 20th century whilst on the French Riviera and in America are some of the most spontaneous and evocative depictions ever produced on the subject. Whether they were painted at the famous courts at the Hôtel Beau Site in Cannes – then ‘the’ place to go for well healed British holiday makers, or at the courts of the Breakers Hotel in Florida or in the private residences of Palm Beach, these paintings have a freshness and sense of movement which still have the power mesmerise to this day.

Lavery’s 1885 The Tennis Party remains, however, his most accomplished and monumental depiction of the sport, an image which, more than any other artwork has influenced our vision of what we feel tennis ‘should’ be, and it remains to this day the quintessential image of the sport.

How are traditional auction houses changing?

Posted on January 18, 2022January 16, 2025 by Jonathan Horwich

It’s fantastic to see so many new artists’ work coming to the fore all over the globe, and how the role of buying and selling fine art is evolving to attract new audiences.

Attracting new buyers

Somehow the art world has managed to fast forward thanks to technological advances brought in as a matter of necessity during the pandemic, removing many or all of the old barriers that were putting first time buyers off auctions, or more positively pulling them in!

How many online bidders at Christie’s?

As an auctions career ‘lifer’ myself, I have always believed it’s a numbers game. The more active bidders you have in any auction the better it will perform.
Thanks to technology – Christie’s managed, in a heartbeat, to get from an average 8-1,200 hundred online bidders to 50,000, which is what happened at their global ‘one’ event in 2020. There were so many bidders that when I tried logging on, it bounced me out!

Is online bidding here to stay?

Although the online affect could diminish as the post-pandemic era progresses, thousands of new collectors and buyers are now hooked as auction houses have demystified the process of an auction.
I can see that it’s happened by accident and not design. We’re entering into a new era with contemporary art auctions still growing, Old Masters are doing well especially Prints. Jewellery, Watches and Design are still strong but the focus is heavily on masterworks or special pieces.

How are auction houses evolving?

New ways of selling are now starting to emerge thanks to the new owner of Sotheby’s Patrick Drahi who bought the business pre-lockdown. He has quite logically seen his brand is much more able to penetrate into new areas. Yes Sotheby’s is an auction house but it’s also a luxury shop selling branded goods.

Christie’s ‘One’ live auction held all one day July 10th 2020, it was one very long auction broadcast from four locations starting in Hong Kong,
then switching seamlessly to Paris, London and finally New York

New auctioning ideas are appearing all the time with the most recent being the Las Vegas MGM Grand live auction of works by Picasso from the Casino Picasso Dining room this October. Only 11 pictures, all by Picasso were in the auction, and raised a staggering total of $110,000,000 from what is only a selection of works the Casino owns.

The next day luxury items, sneakers, handbags, watches and the like all did equally well in a smaller MGM Casino downtown. This was truly an event auction and I think it will set the trend for the years to come.

I think we can all be encouraged by the fact that more people than ever before are taking an active interest in auctions both as buyers and sellers.

Here are some fine art pieces sold highlighting what an extraordinary year 2021 has been.

How are traditional auction houses changing?

Posted on December 10, 2021February 5, 2025 by Jonathan Horwich

It’s fantastic to see so many new artists’ work coming to the fore all over the globe, and how the role of buying and selling fine art is evolving to attract new audiences.

Attracting new buyers

How many online bidders at Christie’s?

As an auctions career ‘lifer’ myself, I have always believed it’s a numbers game. The more active bidders you have in any auction the better it will perform.

Thanks to technology – Christie’s managed to attract more than 80,000 people via their online bidding channel during their global ‘One’ sale in 2020. There were so many bidders that when I tried logging on, it bounced me out!

Is online bidding here to stay?

Although the online affect could diminish as the post-pandemic era progresses, thousands of new collectors and buyers are now hooked as auction houses have demystified the process of an auction.

I can see that it’s happened by accident and not design. We’re entering into a new era with contemporary art auctions still growing, Old Masters are doing well especially Prints. Jewellery, Watches and Design are still strong but the focus is heavily on masterworks or special pieces.

How are auction houses evolving?

I think we can all be encouraged by the fact that more people than ever before are taking an active interest in auctions both as buyers and sellers.
Here are some fine art pieces sold highlighting what an extraordinary year 2021 has been.

My Favourite Item…The Cunha Braga Cup

Posted on December 7, 2021February 5, 2025 by Jonathan Horwich

Knowing that I am a picture specialist, it may come as a surprise that I have chosen this 14 cm long, ceremonial drinking vessel. It is a rock crystal masterpiece of renaissance craftmanship, carving and decoration and is my favourite piece of all time. I am not sure if I know myself why I love it so much – maybe it is because it is so tactile, almost warm to the touch, and just oozes history. It fits neatly in the palm of your hand and is beautifully made – and nearly 400 years before Carl Faberge turns up and makes anything nearly as good.

I first saw the cup in October 2006 on its preview in New York. I was previewing pictures alongside my colleague from the works of art team who was accompanying the cup. My colleague gave me some of the background to its discovery. Amazingly, he spotted it among a bunch of Polaroid shots sent over from Portugal by a client just in case there was anything of interest. Even more remarkable is that the photographs were general room shots of a room full of display cabinets all rammed with various pieces and the cup was spotted tucked in a cabinet full of undistinguished objects. He was on a plane to Lisbon the next day to see it and the rest is history. I remember he told me that at first it was thought to be a copy or later version of a similar cup in a Munich museum. However, once the two were put together side by side in the museum the curators were delighted to discover that our one was made by the same craftsman as theirs – making these two the definitive pieces and ours the only other example in the world available to buy.

It had belonged to Alfredo Baptista Cunha Braga (1869-1932) from Lisbon. He acquired it circa 1920 and then by direct descent to the owners in the auction. The piece was offered in London on 30/11/2006, the pre-sale estimate was £200,000-300,000 but it sold for an astounding £1,968,000.

Macklowe Collection

Posted on November 23, 2021February 6, 2025 by Jonathan Horwich

After 10 years of legal wrangling through the divorce courts of New York, the Macklowe Collection finally hit the auction block on November 15th.

For the warring Harry and Linda Macklowe, the sale brought some partial closure to their epic divorce battle. For Sotheby’s it represents significant market share and the highest possible Art Market profile for 2021 and 2022.
For collectors worldwide it was a truly golden opportunity to pick and choose from the most important single owner collection sale in auction history. Each and every work is a Masterwork in its own right and everything is so carefully chosen, curated and of the highest quality that it would be impossible to ever put a collection like this together again. Equally the quantity of works in the collection quite simply couldn’t be sourced or is even available. This was a landmark sale in all respects, putting aside all the couple’s endless arguments, it has rewritten the record books.

In a rapidly changing Post Lockdown Art World, this collection of Modern and Contemporary Art Masterworks re-defines the boundaries of both categories. The collection was ‘guaranteed’ to sell, it was just a matter of how much it would sell for! Having been an auctioneer myself for over 30 years I could feel the excitement even from this side of the Pond, and as we got nearer to the sale itself, collectors and advisors would have all been in a heightened state of excitement.

Each of the 65 works is a masterwork and together they constitute an unrivalled ensemble that meticulously traces the most important art historical achievements of the last 80 years.

The November 15th auction, which was held at Sotherby’s New York, featured 35 works, ranging in date from the 1940s to works painted less than a decade ago. Many artists – among them Jeff Koons, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly and Andy Warhol – are represented by multiple works, each one marking a distinct and critical moment in their respective careers, and together forming an insightful portrait of the artists’ evolution over time.

The entire group of 35 works was backed by the auction house with a guarantee and every single lot was sold, 21 lots came to the sale with ‘irrevocable bids’ and the sale total soared over its pre-sale low/high estimate expected total of between $439.4 million-$618.9 million.

This was only the first half of the 65 works in total from the Macklowes’ holdings to be auctioned off by authority of the NY Courts, the second half is to be offered in another final standalone sale devoted to the remaining works in May 2022.

The first half of the Macklowe collection sale totalled $676 million.

Here are some of my highlights:

If I had £5,000 to invest what would I buy?

Posted on November 12, 2021February 6, 2025 by David Dallas

David Oxtoby prints

If my godfather left me £5,000, I wouldn’t hesitate to spend every penny buying the suite of etchings (24), which Dave Oxtoby produced in 1974.

David Jowett Greaves Oxtoby is undoubtedly one of Britain’s greatest printmakers, as the show at the British Museum proved a few summers ago. He was one of the notorious ‘Bradford Mafia’, a group of young Yorkshire artists, who after attending the Regional College of Art in Bradford, came to London to further their education at the Royal College of Art and The Royal Academy schools. As well as Oxtoby, the group included David Hockney, Norman Stevens A.R.A, John Loker and Mick Vaughn. Before he had left the Royal Academy schools, Oxtoby had his first one man show in New York. His was and is a prodigious talent.

By the early 1970s his hands were starting to crack, and he was told that he was allergic to the acrylic paints he was using. After taking medical advice, he took up etching and what a triumph that was. In collaboration with J.C. Editons he produced a suite of 24 immensely complicated, in some cases, 4 colour, etchings. I have the good fortune to own a set of artist’s proofs.

In 1974 I worked for Alex Postan Fine Art and was entrusted with getting publicity for the show of etchings, which included watercolours and acrylics as well as prints. It was the easiest job I have ever had. Marina Vaizey wrote a half page review of it in The Telegraph, Bill Packer, a half page in the Financial Times and it was in the list of the 10 best things to do this Christmas in London in the Daily Express. Rod Stewart came to the private view. Oxtoby went on to exhibit with the Redfern Gallery in Cork Street in the 70s where the private views would sell out. Elton John bought Oxtoby’s canvases in vast numbers, for prices that were somewhere between Hockney and Picasso. He is still with the Redfern.

He has had more than 50 solo exhibitions and taken part in more than 70 group shows, yet for much of the last 30 years has lived like a recluse and kept all his latest work from public scrutiny. The result of this has had an adverse effect on the value of his work.

Oxtoby has not had the recognition for the brilliance of his draftsmanship and use of colour from the establishment that his oeuvre deserves. This seems to be because his work is inspired by popular culture, pop, rock and blues music, which is considered low brow and because he works from photographs, despite knowing subjects like Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison and Roger Daltrey well.

He was 83 in January and is not in good health. The cracked hands, which turned him into a printmaker, were actually caused by misdiagnosed diabetes. What future generations will make of his work remains to be seen, but I believe he is ready for a critical re-assessment and should take his rightful place amongst the greats of late 20th/early 21st century British art.

If I had £5,000 to invest what would I buy?

Posted on October 26, 2021February 6, 2025 by Jonathan Horwich

I would spend my £5,000 on a limited Edition by the Japanese Contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama (born 1929).

I would choose one of her objects series, perhaps a Tea Set (below), or a group of mini pumpkins (opposite). They are all colourful, tactile, fun, attractive, look great on display and invite curiosity. Plus, they offer an investment opportunity, as Kusama’s work has an international appeal and great originality. Not only is her work recognisable, but it also proves to be a strong international brand.

Her work comes up for sale all the time, is widely available and sells well around the world. This is of key importance with art investment; the more countries you can sell in the better your chances are of some financial uplift on your purchase price.

I have chosen a few examples which I would buy in a heartbeat.

If I had £5,000 to invest what would I buy?

Posted on October 5, 2021January 15, 2025 by Ben Hanly

£5,000 to buy art – sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? It is certainly a decent chunk of change to play with – large enough to focus the mind and to open the possibility of buying something a little bit more special than a decorative wall filler. Conversely, the moment one starts looking at works in a slightly higher price bracket, and by artists who have more pedigree, suddenly £5,000 doesn’t seem that much at all! A strategy is, therefore, needed if the canny buyer is to maximise their buying power.

For me, if I had £5,000 to spend on one artwork, I would adopt a twofold approach – firstly I would look to buy as good a work on paper as I could find by an artist whose work I loved, but whose paintings are out of my reach. Secondly, in order to maximise my buying power, I would concentrate my search entirely on the auction market rather than buying from a retail gallery. Buying from auction can take a little more time, and it needs a little more research by the collector, but it often allows one to buy works considerably cheaper than retail level. As a famous supermarket says – every little helps!

The artist I would buy with my £5,000 is an artist who I think is significantly undervalued in the current market, both in terms of his talent as well as in comparison to the values many of his contemporaries achieve. Keith Vaughan is a relatively overlooked Modern British artist who was born in 1912 at Selsey Bill in Sussex. He was a self-taught artist with no formal instruction in art, yet he went onto forge a highly individualist and distinctive career which has until fairly recently has been overshadowed by the giants of his generation – Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Terry Frost, Ivan Hitchens etc.

Vaughan started his career as a commercial artist when he was apprenticed at the Lintas advertising agency, from which he gained an understanding of composition and form – both essential skills in commercial art. From 1939, after he left Lintas, Vaughan became a full-time artist. With the outbreak of World War II, Vaughan declared himself a conscientious objector and joined the St John Ambulance; in 1941 he was conscripted into the Non-Combatant Corps.

During the war Vaughan formed friendships with the painters Graham Sutherland and John Minton, with whom after demobilisation in 1946 he shared premises. Through these contacts he formed part of the neo-romantic circle of the immediate post-war period. However, Vaughan rapidly developed an idiosyncratic style which moved him away from the Neo-Romantics. Concentrating on studies of male figures, his works became increasingly abstract.
Vaughan worked as an art teacher at the Camberwell College of Arts, the Central School of Art and later at the Slade School.

Throughout his life, Vaughan’s struggled with his own internal demons. Keith Vaughan was a gay man living in a time when homosexuality was illegal and actively frowned upon by Society. His struggle with his sexuality is reflected throughout his work and in his source of subject matter. Studies of figures and male nudes feature heavily in his work, although they are simplified and abstracted showing the influence of both international Modernism, Cubism his love of ballet and dance. Vaughan suffered from habitual depression and alcoholism, which eventually resulted in his suicide in 1977.

One might be forgiven for thinking that in light of all this Vaughan’s work would be negative and dour, however, this is wrong. As is often the case, personal struggles can produce works of great sensitivity and subtly. Vaughan’s work has a graphic quality that is softened by the use of a very sophisticated colour palette. They are very beautiful, elegant images.

The commercial art market has begun to reflect the increasing interest in, and appreciation of Vaughan’s work, with good examples now regularly achieving six figure sums at the auction. His works are also appearing more frequently at high end art fairs, where wall space has a commercial value, and a dealer’s decision to show a Vaughan instead of another artist is a calculated strategy, and one that reflects growing demand.

And yet, even with this increased visibility Keith Vaughan’s work is still undervalued in relation to many of his contemporaries, and it represents significant investment potential. His drawings in particular are surprisingly accessible financially and it is entirely possible to buy lovely pencil or pen and ink studies for a thousand or two, sometimes less; and more important, finished watercolours and gouaches can be bought within our £5,000 budget at auction.

How long this relative accessibility will last, I cannot say, but in my opinion now is definitely the time to buy Keith Vaughan’s work if like it and respond to it. Clearly, as always, liking an artist’s work is the primary reason for buying it, but it’s always nice to have a healthy upside too.